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Marple: A Murder Is Announced (2005)
Magnificent Marple Mystery!
Geraldine McEwan does her best in this really, entertaining murder mystery that is the best so far, after seeing "Murder at the Vicarage" and the "The Body in the Library", though I have yet to see the fourth and final episode to this Marple series, "4.50 From Paddington".
In this episode, people living in a town called Chipping Cleghorn, are informed by an advertisement in the newspapers that reads: "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 p.m..." This intrigues the locals, and they make their way to one Letitia Blacklock's house, since she lives at Little Paddocks. The residents of Cleghorn including Blacklock wait in the sitting room for the worst to occur, which is very dramatic, until the lights suddenly go off and several shots ring in the air, and a body of an individual is found dead on the floor. The dead man wasn't one of the guests at Blacklock's house, and the gun found near him, makes the police suspect that he committed suicide. But Miss Marple as usual has other ideas.
This time my reckoning of the criminal was correct unlike my wrong guesses of possible culprits in murder in previous Agatha Christie episodes. I have observed a pattern in these murder series. In Agatha Christie's world, the real guilty party is the one that doesn't look suspicious, and seeing Blacklock being unsuspected made me suspect her. In the end, I was proved right.
This was a thoroughly entertaining episode and I recommend fans of Agatha Christie to watch this film!
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Did Jason Win? Did Freddy Lose?
Did Jason win? Did Freddy lose? That's the question. Frankly speaking, we don't know whether there was a win and lose situation when speaking about 'Freddy Vs Jason' (2003), directed by Ronny Yu and starring Robert Englund and Ken Kirzinger as Freddy and Jason respectively.
After nearly ten years in exile from the cinema, Freddy is revitalized in this slasher flick, which provides chills and plenty of bloodletting action!! Robert Englund, who has played the razor-fingered antihero in all the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' movies since 1984, as usual brings the one-liners and humor with his portrayal in this film in a fresh spirit that has made the character of Freddy Kruger fascinating!
Jason Voorhees, in more ways than one, is far more scary and dangerous than what Freddy can be! In Freddy's case, you can see what he looks like directly and with his constant one-liners, you lose the sense of fear for him but rather some amusement! In Jason's case, it's the opposite. We cannot see what Jason really looks like, since he hides it behind a hockey mask, so naturally we are more afraid of him because we have no idea what he looks like! Kane Hodder was a impressively frightening Jason in the four 'Friday the 13ths' leading up to 'Jason X' in 2002, and there's not a shadow of doubt that he would have done the same in 'Freddy Vs Jason', but he was unfortunately replaced by Ken Kirzinger, who seemed more apt for the role of the silent machete-wielding monster on the basis of his great stature. Nevertheless Ken gave a really spine chilling edge to the character of Jason Voorhees, and there stands no distinction between him and Kane's Jason.
In this movie, Freddy is desperate at terrorizing teenagers in their dreams, since the kids of Elm Street have been made to forget him completely with dream suppressants. Freddy then resurrects Jason to terrorize the kids at Elm Street in order for him to unleash his worst in teenagers' dreams. However, Jason goes overboard with the killing, and when Jason kills the girl that Freddy was about to kill himself, the seed of hatred is planted between the ultra-tyrants! The fighting between Freddy and Jason in Freddy's dream world and then subsequently at Camp Crystal Lake is exciting and thrilling, for you want to know who's going to win in this terrible fight. Of course at the end it is Jason who has more or less won, since you see him carrying Freddy's head like some trophy at the end of the film, but did he really win on his own is not the case for he was helped by the Elm Street kids who were trying to get the big, silent fiend against their arch nemesis, Freddy, which shows that Freddy could have defeated Jason in his dream world, but who was unfortunately dragged to the real world by Lori (Monica Keena) where Jason had some chance of defeating him in the ultimate fight. So overall, the fight was a draw! I wonder whether Freddy will win when the sequel to 'Freddy Vs Jason' comes this year or in 2006?
Jay Jay (2003)
Madhavan's Worst Performance
If there's any movie of Madhavan that is absolutely a flop, it has to be 'Jay Jay' which is a remake of the Hollywood film, 'Serendipity' starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. Madhavan displays nothing of his remarkable acting abilities and he literally sleepwalks in the film. The film suffers mainly due to Madhavan's lack of performance and evident lack of interest in the film in which he's acting.
I must admit there are good song sequences and some good action which shows Madhavan as a splendid fighter, but otherwise on the whole there's no real romance, no great plot, and no great acting. It's a very poor film and hardly worthwhile to watch!!
Nala Damayanthi (2003)
Hilarious Tamil Comedy
Kamal Hassan's film production, 'Nala Damayanthi', made 80% in Australia in early 2003, must be the most hilarious motion picture ever to date, for comedy was clearly not contemplated here for it was meant to be a serious movie, and yet the way that mediocre director Mouli (famed for making useless movies, which puts him close to that legendary Worst Hollywood Director of all time, Ed Wood) has directed this picture has inadvertently conveyed comedy!
People say that if Kamal Hassan had been in Madhavan's shoes as the dim-witted cook, the film would have worked better, but I disagree, for Kamal would have overacted, bringing the staleness of comedy as he had previously done in 'Tenali' (2000). This film was definitely meant for Madhavan alone, and the way he has portrayed a dumb character entirely different from the boyish, smartypants roles that he has played before does him great credit as an actor. Madhavan's acting in this movie is natural, with neither overacting nor underacting but just a well-deserved performance.
The storyline of the film is pretty straightforward. Ramji (Madhavan) is a cook from an Indian village, who decides to go to Australia to work as a chef there in order to get the money required for his sister's marriage. Unfortunately, the cook's employer is dead by the time Ramji appears and he soon finds himself wandering around aimlessly in the cold, cruel city of Melbourne, looking for some salvation. Again there is misfortune, when Ramji loses his passport and visa at a railway station where Aussie gangsters bash him up. Ramji wanders aimlessly around until he gets bumped by a demented kid's wheelchair that's going down the hill, which is the most awkward scene in the movie, and I don't know why Director Mouli did this ridiculous sequence.
Fortunately Ramji is taken into the home of a kindred Indian couple, Badri (Sriman) and his wife Anu (Anu Hassan), who are the parents of the retarded child, and they employ Ramji to work for them as their chef. But life isn't easy for Ramji, for the police are trying to nab him since he's an illegal immigrant!! However, Badri's Sri Lankan lawyer friend, Ivan (Bruno Xavier) decides that they should arrange a fake marriage between his own fiancée, Damayanthi (Geetu Mohandas) and Ramji, in order to get the cook Australian citizenship. The splendid car-chase in which Ivan is driving Ramji and Damayanthi in a car away from police vehicles to the church to get them married off is quite thrilling. The Police Inspector Hector (Mark Jensen) arrives to late to capture the cook for he has been legally married off to Damayanthi, and so it's evident that the police inspector has been defeated before the cinematic intermission, but not for long.
The police inspector gets immigration officials to check the authenticity of the marriage between Ramji and Damayanthi, and while the "married couple" are going through this phase of coming up with a fake story of how they met, Ramji comes across a lady who reveals that Ivan had married her in a similar way like Ramji where he had to get Australian citizenship and had subsequently deserted her! Ramji realizes that Ivan's a crook who's cheating on his "wife", and when Damayanthi learns about her fiancée's true character, she wishes to have nothing to do with him. Enraged, the lawyer thinks that Ramji is responsible for his downfall and in the ultimate climax, he gets the same Aussie gangsters who had bashed the cook earlier in the movie to smash him again. But here, the cook stands up for himself and he bashes everybody up before leaving for the immigration office. But at the immigration office, Ramji inadvertently blurts out the truth and is deported to India. Since Damaynathi has fallen in love with the cook, she leaves Australia, and is married to Ramji in India, where they run the "Mahabharata" restaurant.
Nala Damayanthi is a pretty interesting film for you want to know how the cook is going to manage with all the problems regarding the police and immigration, and the absurdity of many things about the film makes the theme of immigration and the law less serious than it should be. There are a number of ridiculous incidents in the film:
(1) The scene where Ramji gets hit by a demented kid's wheelchair and goes down the hill.
(2) Ramji performing Hindu rituals at the Yarra River in the city of Melbourne, where a fight between Aussies and Indians takes place before it ends up in the arrest of the cook by the police.
(3) Ramji talking crap with the immigration officials.
(4) A troubled Damayanthi phoning Ivan up and asking him, "Are we really in love?" to which Ivan replies, "Yes, Damay, of course we are in love!"
(5) When Ivan becomes the cook's enemy, he suddenly shaves his head!!
(6) When the Aussie gangsters tried to bash up the cook in the finale of the film, we know it's Ivan's doing, but how he knew these rogues is not explained.
(7) It's ridiculous that the lawyer at the finale of the film should have been fighting with a woman when he should have been fighting with the cook who is his greatest enemy, and it's ridiculous that the lawyer should have gone and hit the wall by himself during the fight. It's also ridiculous that the film should leave Ivan badly injured when we would naturally expect him to be arrested by the police!!
Despite it's outward flaws, 'Nala Damayanthi' is nevertheless hilarious, and I really enjoyed it very much, and I definitely recommend Tamil audiences to watch this movie!!
The Omen (1976)
Curse of the Satan
There's no doubt that 'The Omen' was one of the scariest movies in the 1970s, second to that of 'The Exorcist'. Both these deal with enemies of God; in 'The Exorcist', it's a girl who's possessed by a devil,and in 'The Omen', there's a child who is the Antichrist himself!!
It's perhaps strange to have the central antihero not physically killing those around him, but whose evil energy is doing the deed!! The scenes in the movie where a photographer takes pictures of those who later died under strange circumstances, and the photographs revealing uncanny marks running diagonally across the person exhibited in the photographs, which seems to foreshadow what was going to happen, is quite frightening! Even more frightening is when the photographer shows a photo of himself to Robert Thorn (played by the late Gregory Peck) which shows a mark running through the photographer in the picture, which seems to foreshadow that he's going to die too like the others!! And sure enough it happens when the photographer is horribly decapitated later in the movie!!!
Gregory Peck displays great intensity in this film and this is the second time I have watched his performance (the first time I saw of him was as Captain Ahab in the film, 'Moby Dick' (1956)). The film, though it doesn't have great special effects as would please a modern audience of the horror genre, it's nevertheless really scary than the movies of nowadays which seem to have stepped a little away from the real essence that provides great scares and chills!